Willard Richards and Cumorah

Moroni's America

I happened to be reading the journal of Willard Richards for other reasons when I came across something I thought readers of this blog would find interesting.

Willard joined the Church in 1836 after his cousins, Joseph and Brigham Young, shared a copy of the Book of Mormon with him. Willard served a mission in England, was ordained an Apostle, became a personal secretary to Joseph Smith and later was a counselor in the First Presidency to Brigham Young.

I noticed that on September 22, 1841, while he was on his way to Nauvoo from England, Richards recorded this:

"22 2h PM ascended the summit of Ramah Cumorah. Blessed and ate some cake cheese & dried beef - knelt before the Lord in thanksgiving & prayer. read Cowdery description of Cumorah read description of Lamanites Nephites & Jaredites in book of Mormon. Searched for cave..."

I'll save the rest for another post, but I mention this because of the ongoing effort by M2C advocates to insist the prophets were wrong about the NY Cumorah.

Among other things, they tell us Brigham Young was wrong when he told the Saints that Oliver and Joseph visited the repository of Nephite records in the Hill Cumorah in New York. Although Oliver said they visited multiple times, our M2C friends insist that Oliver must have been referring to a dream or vision of a hill in southern Mexico.

For example, we have this bizarre explanation from FairMormon that is the standard M2C response if you bring up this topic with an M2C adherent:

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Is_there_a_cave_in_the_Hill_Cumorah_containing_the_Nephite_records%3F

Here's a fun excerpt with my comments:

There are at least ten second hand accounts describing the story of the cave in Cumorah, however, Joseph Smith himself did not record the incident.  This objection is a red herring fallacy. Joseph Smith recorded very little. He didn't even record the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood or his receipt of the keys in the Kirtland temple. Does that mean those events did not happen? We have more accounts of the cave in Cumorah than we do of the restoration of the priesthood and the temple keys. 

As mentioned previously, the Hill Cumorah located in New York state is a drumlin: this means it is a pile of gravel scraped together by an ancient glacier. This is just fake news. I suspect no one at FairMormon or Book of Mormon Central has ever dug into one of these drumlins as I have. They just found some source that claims these hills are "a pile of gravel" and went with it because it confirmed their M2C bias. And they don't want to hear what I have to say about it.

The dictionary definition of a drumlin is "a low oval mound or small hill, typically one of a group, consisting of compacted boulder clay molded by past glacial action." Also, "The name is derived from the Gaelic word druim (“rounded hill,” or “mound”) and first appeared in 1833." Some drumlins are made up entirely of hard bedrock (e.g. granite or well-lithified limestone). I can tell you from personal experience that the drumlins in western NY are not "a pile of gravel."  

The geologic unlikelihood of a cave existing within the hill such as the one described suggests that the experience related by the various witnesses was most likely a vision, or a divine transportation to another locale (as with Nephi's experience in 1 Nephi 11:1). This is my favorite justification for rejecting what Brigham Young and other Church leaders said. It's an armchair M2C scholar trying to justify the theory that Joseph and Oliver were ignorant speculators who were wrong about Cumorah in New York because the "real Cumorah" is in southern Mexico because... because that's what the M2C "internal model" says. 

You should go to the link and read the entire quotation. It is literally unbelievable.

Can you imagine a nonmember investigating the Church and reading this stuff? Or a youth in the Church who somehow discovers what the prophets have taught about Cumorah and then reads the crazy justifications for M2C from FairMormon and Book of Mormon Central ?
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Contrast the speculations and sophistry of the M2C intellectuals with the real-world experience of Joseph Smith's contemporaries.

Here was Willard Richards, in 1841, reading what Oliver wrote and searching for the cave Oliver described. Willard didn't say what description he was reading. Oliver's Letter VII had been originally published in the Messenger and Advocate in 1835. It was republished in the October 1840 Millennial Star, so Willard may have picked up a copy when he was in England. Letter VII was republished in March 1841 in the Gospel Reflector and in April 1841 in the Times and Seasons. Although Willard was returning from England, he could have obtained a copy of either publication through the mail. Or he may have had another version of Oliver's description.

As we've discussed before, that cave, or room, was empty by 1841. By the time the Saints left New York in 1831, the plates were no longer in the hill Cumorah, but they are not far from there.

Brigham Young told the Saints about this shortly before he died because he feared that otherwise the knowledge would be lost.

Thanks to the efforts of the M2C citation cartel, including our revisionist Church historians, Brigham's fears have become reality. 

The knowledge has, in fact, been lost. You won't find it in Saints or any other recent materials.

The few Church members who still know about the New York Cumorah (mainly those who are around age 50 or older) have been taught to believe Brigham was relating a mere dream of a hill somewhere in southern Mexico.

I suspect most of them can tell that FairMormon's explanation is fake news.

That's why the M2C citation cartel and revisionist historians had no alternative but to censor the New York Cumorah everywhere they can.
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Readers Digest version of Saints, volume 1

A lot of people are learning Church history by reading Saints, volume 1. It's a long book, and mostly great. But some of it is revisionist history, so I'm offering this as an overview to help readers understand what they're going to read.

There is an important timeline that the book does not explain. In 1834, an anti-Mormon book titled Mormonism Unvailed was published near Kirtland, Ohio, that claimed Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon using a "peep stone" that he put in a hat. The book acknowledged an alternative explanation that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. 

In response, Joseph and Oliver wrote a series of 8 letters about Church history. In Letter #1, they declared that Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim. Joseph made sure those letters republished several times so all Church members could read them. Plus, in the 1842 Wentworth letter, Joseph reiterated the U&T. In 1848, when Oliver rejoined the Church, he reiterated the U&T. 

Nevertheless, Saints, Volume 1, adopts the Mormonism Unvailed approach by teaching that Joseph used the stone-in-the-hat, which I call SITH.

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Shapeshifter

As if SITH wasn't bad enough, we have a shape-shifting resurrected being (Moroni as an old man visiting Mary Whitmer--he might as well be a salamander after all).

We have plates that were laboriously abridged and carefully preserved for 1400 years only to be kept under a cloth and never even opened, which surely was a surprise to Moroni who "sealed" a portion and warned Joseph not to read the sealed portion, apparently because he didn't know Joseph could "translate" the whole thing without even looking at the plates because he found a stone in a well that worked a lot better than the clunky old Urim and Thummim Moroni provided.  

And, of course, according to Saints no one ever mentioned Cumorah, let alone the fact that the Cumorah of Mormon 6:6 is the same hill in New York where Joseph found the plates.

Saints teaches us that Joseph, Oliver, and all their contemporaries and successors were wrong about Cumorah and the Urim and Thummim until a handful of LDS historians, 190 years after the fact, figured out what really happened!

Sadly, this isn't even hyperbole.

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People can believe whatever they want, but many people don't think this revisionist history is credible, whether or not they are members of the Church. 

We hope people don't let the revisionist history cause confusion or lead them to doubt their testimonies of the Restoration.  

There are still Church members who believe what Joseph and Oliver taught. We think the historical record left by Joseph and Oliver is credible, not to mention consistent with the scriptures (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price).We can still read their teachings in the Joseph Smith Papers, even if we can't read them in Saints. 

We accept what Joseph and Oliver taught because they were the only witnesses to many of the critical events in Church history, they were the President and Assistant President of the Church, respectively, and they were entrusted with the keys of the temple.

We also recognize that their contemporaries and successors in Church leadership have consistently and persistently reaffirmed what they taught.

Until the revisionist historians took over.

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Here's what makes sense to us.

We think Joseph actually translated the plates using the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. 

We think Moroni sealed a portion of the plates because Joseph was translating the actual plates and could have translated the sealed portion if it had not been sealed.

We think Moroni was not a shape-shifter who appeared in the form of an old man to Mary Whitmer. 

We think that messenger who showed the plates of Nephi was the same one who told David, Joseph and Oliver that he was taking the Harmony plates to Cumorah before he brought the plates of Nephi to Fayette.

We think there were two sets of plates: the abridged plates that Joseph translated in Harmony, and the plates of Nephi that Joseph translated in Fayette. 

We think Joseph used a seer stone to provide a demonstration of the process, but not to translate the plates.

And we think the Hill Cumorah is in New York, not in Mexico.

Visit to Benjamin Winchester's grave

Benjamin Winchester grave
with Lost City of Zarahemla

I was in Iowa the other day so I stopped by the burial site of Benjamin Winchester. It's only a few miles from the Winter Quarters, Nebraska, temple and visitors center. (Those are worth a visit if you are ever in the area.)

I took this photo to go along with another photo I took of a monument that includes Benjamin Winchester. The other monument is the one that memorializes the Eight Witnesses. That one is located not far from Liberty Jail in Missouri. Winchester is on there because he was one of the men who stayed in the area after Zion's Camp disbanded, along with Wilford Woodruff and a few others. They stayed to work and earn money to help other members of the Church.

Winchester, like everyone else, was a complex individual. He wrote the first LDS concordance of the scriptures. The brief bio in the Joseph Smith Papers gives an idea of his contributions.

But he also promoted the ruins in Central America as evidence of the Book of Mormon that laid the foundation for M2C, and later in life he promoted SITH.

I think we'd all be better off if we could bury M2C and SITH.

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The first book I wrote about Church history, The Lost City of Zarahemla, focused on the infamous 1842 anonymous articles in the Times and Seasons that our M2C intellectuals have attributed to Joseph Smith. I propose instead that these articles were written by Benjamin Winchester, who was living in Philadelphia at the time.

Although Joseph Smith is listed in the boilerplate of the Times and Seasons during part of 1842, he is also listed as the printer and publisher of the newspaper. Nobody claims Joseph actually set type and ran the printing press. He was the nominal printer, meaning the printer in name only. In the same way, I think he was the nominal editor. He didn't have the time, interest, or talent to edit the newspaper.

Instead, I think his brother William, who was publishing another newspaper from the same printing shop in Nauvoo (titled The Wasp), was the actual editor of the Times and Seasons. At some point, W.W. Phelps came to Nauvoo and undoubtedly assisted. Winchester would mail material to William Smith, who, together with Phelps, edited it for publication. That's why these articles were published anonymously, just like all the other Winchester articles. (Winchester was the second most published author in the Times and Seasons through 1842, next to Joseph Smith. The very first issue of the Times and Seasons contained a letter he wrote.)

Our M2C friends whose theory originated from the anonymous articles in the 1842 Times and Seasons continue to insist that Joseph wrote them. Some of them concocted a "stylometry" study to prove their theory, except they still refuse to disclose their data, assumptions, and software.

My conclusion required Winchester to be sending material to Nauvoo. We don't have the original sources for most of what was published in the Times and Seasons. The Wentworth letter, for example, exists only in the Times and Seasons. Presumably it was written by hand, and presumably it was an edited version of Orson Pratt's missionary pamphlet, but we don't have any pre-publication materials.

If we did, I suspect we would find the materials Winchester mailed to Nauvoo from Philadelphia. That remains speculation unless and until those pre-publication materials are found.

Winchester letter 8 August 1842

However, after I published the first edition of the book, a letter from Winchester turned up. He mailed it from Philadelphia to Nauvoo, addressed to the "first presidency." It was dated 8 August 1842. That's right in the time frame for the anonymous articles. It corroborates, but does not prove, my conclusions.

You can see the letter in the Joseph Smith papers, here:
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-from-benjamin-winchester-8-august-1842/1#facts

I'll have more to say about this topic later this week. 

M2C and the Hoffman saga

I was reading a fascinating book* that discusses the Mark Hoffman saga and one aspect stood out that relates to M2C.

Readers ask me all the time how M2C persists. It requires a lot of bias confirmation. I recently posted another comment about volcanoes in Mesoamerica to illustrate the power of bias confirmation, compounded by faulty assumptions. You can read it here.

http://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2020/05/m2c-volcanoes-bias-confirmation-and.html

In that post, I compared the M2C problem to the parable of the wheat and the tares. One reason why I encourage M2C readers not to read this blog is because so many faithful LDS have their testimonies entwined with M2C.

Book of Mormon Central and the rest of the M2C citation cartel are spending millions of dollars to portray M2C as the only valid interpretation of the Book of Mormon.

I don't want people to discard their faith just because they come to the realization that M2C (i) repudiates the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah and (ii) is based on logical and factual fallacies. We don't want to "pluck up" M2C if it will damage tender faith.

People who read only M2C material never learn that there is an alternative interpretation of the Book of Mormon and the relevant sciences that corroborates and supports, instead of contradicts and repudiates, the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah.

That's why I wish Book of Mormon Central was neutral, pursuant to the Church's position.

It's why I keep emphasizing that people should not think "M2C or bust." M2C ≠ truth.

_____

Back to the comparison between Mark Hoffman and M2C.

Mark Hoffman sharing forged document with
First Presidency and members of the Twelve

Mark Hoffman was a well-known collector of Mormon documents. In the 1980s, he sold several to the Church. Experts, including Church historians, examined the documents and pronounced them authentic. They persuaded Church leaders that the documents were authentic.

The Church even purchased some of the forged documents.

After Hoffman murdered two people with bombs, and injured himself, investigators discovered that he had forged hundreds of documents, including the ones the Church purchased. There are books, articles, and even a documentary about the whole thing.

After investigators proved the documents were forged and charges were filed against Hoffman, investigators went to BYU to speak with those who had validated the documents.

By then, these historians had written articles based on the forgeries. The most notorious forgery was the Salamander letter, purportedly written by Martin Harris to W.W. Phelps, that claimed it was a salamander, not Moroni, who appeared to Joseph Smith.

Apologists such as FARMS had figured out a way to explain how the Salamander letter was consistent with what Joseph had taught all along. One of their publications was titled "Why Might a Person in 1830 Connect and Angel with a Salamander?"

In reality, Hoffman had derived the letter from the 1834 anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed, which has recently enjoyed a renaissance of popularity among Church historians, as we've discussed before.

Back to the BYU visit. The investigators met with the historians, "none of whom seemed to think the prosecutors had a case... the only difference between LDS historians and Mormon religion teachers was that the historians still sounded like defense witnesses while the religion instructors pointed out anachronisms and other problems in the Hoffmann documents." (Linda Sillitoe and Allen Roberts, Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders (Signature Books, 2006): 171-2).
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By now, I'm sure you see these two points.

1. Church leaders naturally (and necessarily, given time constraints) deferred to trusted experts regarding the authenticity of the forgeries. Church leaders must focus on ministering to people and administering the Church. They have to rely on experts for ancillary matters such as Church history, Book of Mormon historicity, scientific issues, financial issues, logistics, etc. The same is true for ordinary members; we are busy with our own lives and necessarily trust the experts on matters of special expertise.

2. The experts, albeit faithful and qualified, made errors. Fine, that happens. What is fascinating is how quickly a groupthink developed that redefined long-held understandings about Joseph Smith and early Church history. The groupthink caused the experts to stop investigating the documents (until the bombings). Church intellectuals figured out a way to incorporate the forged documents into their own theories about Church history and reinforced their new approach using their citation cartel and the academic cycle. Even when outside investigators proved the documents were forgeries, they resisted reality because their strong bias confirmation had embraced the documents as genuine.

In fact, it can be argued that the influence of the Hoffman forgeries continued through the present in the way Church historians are interpreting Church history (a topic for another day).

Conclusion. Church members and leaders who relied on the experts were misled by faithful, well-meaning experts who, for various reasons, developed a groupthink around the forged documents. Bias confirmation strengthened the groupthink to the point where it could be overcome only by outside experts and irrefutable evidence.
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Readers here already see the parallels to M2C.

I think that most M2C intellectuals and their followers are sincere, faithful members of the Church. They have rationalized away their repudiation of the teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah (although they are still uncomfortable defending their position).

Like the Hoffman document believers, M2C believers have developed a groupthink, supported by bias confirmation, that prevents them from seeing, let alone considering, alternative interpretations of the text and the relevant sciences.

One simple example is their groupthink about volcanoes; i.e., although Mormon never mentioned volcanoes in 1,000 years of "Mayan" history in Mesoamerica, the M2C believers read volcanoes into the text. They do the same with massive stone pyramids and the three Js: jade, jaguars, and jungles.

Their groupthink is so powerful that they "cannot unsee" Mesoamerica when they read the Book of Mormon.

And, as I always say, that's perfectly fine. Any groupthink that leads people to Christ through the Book of Mormon is fine with me.

The same could have been said for the Hoffman forgeries, as the FARMS paper showed.

But for most people, the forgeries had a negative impact. While many scholars were disappointed to discover the forgery because they had published and spoken about them, most Church members were relieved to know the documents were fake.

It's similar with M2C.

Most faithful LDS, ordinary members and leaders alike, who learn only M2C tend to accept it because they think, thanks to the efforts of the M2C promoters, that it is the only explanation for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. These faithful LDS love the Book of Mormon and have testimonies, so they accept M2C as a sort of appendage.

But many faithful LDS have reservations about M2C. They know what the prophets have taught about the New York Cumorah. They know what Joseph said about the "plains of the Nephites" in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. They know about Zelph. They read the rationalizations of the M2C scholars but have difficulty accepting them because of logical and factual fallacies.

Some go further and investigate Mayan society and culture. They see the incongruities. They begin to recognize that the "correspondences" cited by M2C scholars are illusory.

If they don't know there is an alternative to M2C, many of these faithful Church members become confused and disturbed in their faith, as Joseph Fielding Smith warned so long ago.

As for non-members, M2C requires an enormous leap of faith. It's a bridge too far for most of them, even before they learn that M2C directly repudiates the teachings of the prophets.

It's a mess.

But it doesn't have to be.

The teachings of the prophets about the New York Cumorah are so consistent and clear, and the scientific evidence that supports and corroborates those teachings is so abundant, that more and more Church members are recognizing that M2C doesn't cut it any longer.

That won't change any minds among M2C scholars, their followers, or their employees. It would require irrefutable evidence akin to the exposure of the Hoffman forgeries to change the minds of the M2C believers.

That's why this blog doesn't even try to change anyone's mind.

All we can do is offer information to let people make their own informed decisions.

As you deal with M2C believers, be patient and understanding. Remember that they have never learned that there is an alternative interpretation of the Book of Mormon and the relevant sciences that corroborates and supports, instead of contradicts and repudiates, the teachings of the prophets about Cumorah.

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* Faith Crisis: we were not betrayed, by L. Hannah Stoddard and James E. Stoddard III.

Evolution of seer stone narrative - Benjamin Winchester

I'm sitting in my home office, watching the waves of the Pacific Ocean crash, thinking about how intellectual fads come and go until they crash into oblivion on the shore.

In recent years, influential LDS scholars have claimed the critics were right after all.

According to them, Joseph produced the Book of Mormon by reading words off a seer stone. He didn't really translate anything. We "need to change the definition of the term translate." He didn't use the Urim and Thummim. He didn't even use the plates!

Despite what the scholars say, many active LDS still believe what Joseph and Oliver taught. We're fine with the scholars saying whatever they want. We're fine with people following them. We just think some of their conclusions are not credible and contradict what the prophets have taught.

The evolution of the seer stone narrative parallels the evolution of M2C. The historical record shows that Joseph and Oliver taught that Cumorah was in New York. Scholars dispute that record--Church historians even changed Church history to censor Cumorah in the Saints book--but the record persists and those interested can read it for themselves. We think extrinsic evidence supports the teachings of the prophets. We think M2C persists because of confirmation bias, but we don't insist others agree with us. We oppose the efforts of the M2C citation cartel to censor and suppress alternative faithful perspectives.

It's the same thing with the seer stone narrative.

The historical record shows that Joseph and Oliver taught that Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. From as early as 1834, when Mormonism Unvailed set forth the seer stone ("peep" stone) narrative as an alternative to the Urim and Thummim narrative, critics pushed the seer stone while Joseph and Oliver reiterated the Urim and Thummim narrative throughout their lives.

The other day our friends at Book of Mormon Central posted an article about seer stones that articulated the latest LDS scholarly fad. It included this comment:

Joseph using peep stones
to produce the
Book of Mormon

Joseph Smith used both the Nephite Interpreters and his individual seer stone in the translation of the Book of Mormon. The practice of using stones or glass to receive divine revelation is found in many cultures, including among the ancient Israelites and Maya. Though we may ultimately never fully understand the nature of the Book of Mormon’s translation, Joseph repeatedly testified that he translated the plates by the gift and power of God.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/blog/4-fascinating-insights-about-seers-seer-stones-and-interpreters

Notice how they threw in the "Maya" reference. That's the confirmation bias we see in everything produced by the M2C citation cartel.

Notice also that last clause in bold. It's a classic example of diversion because it's a half-truth.

Joseph did say he translated the plates by the gift and power of God. But he also said he did so by the means of the Urim and Thummim he obtained with the plates.

E.g., in the Wentworth letter, Joseph wrote: With the records was found a curious instrument which the ancients called “Urim and Thummim,” which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate. Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift, and power of God.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/church-history-1-march-1842/2

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Today I'll refer to Benjamin Winchester to illustrate the evolution of the seer stone narrative. Our M2C scholars followed Benjamin Winchester's lead by focusing on Central America. (Winchester wrote the anonymous 1842 Times and Seasons articles that remains the basic rationale for M2C. We discussed that yesterday here.)

Now scholars are following Winchester's lead on the seer stones vs Urim and Thummim.
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In 1841, Benjamin Winchester published a newspaper in Philadelphia. At the time, he was a zealous missionary, a close friend of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, etc. In the March 15 issue, he wrote:

Moroni was then commanded to deposit this record in the earth, together with the Urim and Thummim, or as the Nephites would have said, Interpreters, which were instruments to assist in the work of the translation, with a promise from the Lord that it should be brought to light by means of.a Gentile Nation that should possess the land; and be published to the world, and go forth to the Lamanites, and be one of the instruments in the hands of God for their conversion.

A few pages later, with Joseph Smith's express permission, Winchester republished Oliver Cowdery's eight essays on Church history (the original Gospel Topics essays). These include the passage now found in the Pearl of Great Price:

Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated, with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, “ Interpreters,” the history, or record, called “ The book of Mormon.” 

Also this passage: "[Moroni] said this history was written and deposited not far from that place, and that it was our brother’s privilege, if obedient to the commandments of the Lord, to obtain, and translate the same by the means of the Urim and Thummim, which were deposited for that purpose with the record."

Winchester was on solid ground. Not only did Joseph give him permission to republish Oliver's essays, but he gave them to his brother Don Carlos to publish in the Times and Seasons. He had his scribes copy them into his own journal as part of his life history. His brother William republished them again in 1844 in New York City.

Winchester continued to publish books and articles defending the Church. He refuted the Solomon Spaulding theory. He went on a mission to promote Joseph Smith's candidacy for U.S. President.

But then he became disgruntled, partly over polygamy and partly over disputes with his old friend William Smith (Joseph's brother). He was excommunicated.

Later in life, he changed his version of his experiences with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. Here's what he wrote about the peep stones and the Urim and Thummim. This article was published in the Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday, September 22, 1889.

In regard to Joseph's literary work -- his "translations" -- I well remember some of it at Kirtland. They had there in the temple some Egyptian mummies, four of them I am positive. From one of them Joseph had taken a scroll lettered over with what purported to be Egyptian characters. It was kept on exhibition in a glass case. To this scroll Joseph applied his peep-stone or "Urim-Thummim" and made out a translation purporting to be a vision of Abraham in which the modern theory that the world is round and that it revolves was sustained against the ancient theory prior to the time of Galileo.

Just like some of our LDS scholars today, Winchester put quotation marks around "translation" and equated the seer stone with the Urim and Thummim.

In 1900, Winchester dictated a final testimony.

[Joseph] carried what he called a 'Peep stone' through which he claimed to see hidden treasure & etc. This is what he afterwards called his 'Urim and Thummem.' Finally he took the notion to get up a book. Then he claimed to have made the discovery of the plates. Then he got Cowdery, Harris and Whitmer into it."

"Cowdery was his scribe, or the writer of the book, as Smith dictated it. It was done this way.... Smith was behind the blankets in the dark with this 'peep stone' in his hat and then his face in the hat. As he looked into the hat there would come sentence after sentence upon the stone, and he would dictate it to Cowdery, and Cowdery would write it down.

Benjamin Winchester's claim is exactly what some scholars today say we're supposed to believe. It's in Saints, it's in the Ensign, and it's in Book of Mormon Central.

_____

Back in 1889, just two weeks after Winchester's article came out in the Salt Lake Tribune, President Wilford Woodruff stood up in General Conference and delivered this re-affirmation of what Joseph and Oliver always taught.

And, as has been stated during this Conference, he brought forth the Book of Mormon-the stick of Joseph in the hands of Ephraim-in fulfillment of the testimony of Isaiah, translating that record through the Urim and Thummim, thereby revealing to us the history of the early inhabitants of this Continent. 

(1889, October, 6th Session, President Wilford Woodruff)

President Woodruff could have said, "Well, Benjamin Winchester was correct. Joseph didn't really translate the Book of Mormon. He merely read words that appeared on a seer stone."

There is a long history of Church leaders defending and reiterating what Joseph and Oliver claimed. Here's one of over 100 examples from General Conference addresses: "This book, that has been so despised by the world, was testified to by the Prophet Joseph when asked: "How and when did you obtain the Book of Mormon? Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from which the Book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them, and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates, and thus came the Book of Mormon."

(1896, October, 4th Session, Elder Franklin D. Richards)

There are many sources in Church history that support what Joseph and Oliver said about the translation. There are also sources, such as Benjamin Winchester's final testimonies, that contradict what Joseph and Oliver said.

We can all choose what we want to believe. For now, let's just consider a final passage.

34 He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants;
35 Also, that there were two stones in silver bows—and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim—deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted “seers” in ancient or former times; and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.
(Joseph Smith—History 1:34–35)

M2C and the 1842 Times and Seasons

On May 4 I posted a comment about M2C and cognitive dissonance, showing how the M2C theory always gets back to the anonymous 1842 Times and Seasons articles.

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2020/05/m2c-and-cognitive-dissonance.html

The same day, the Joseph Smith Papers announced the release of Volume 10, covering May through August, 1842.

https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/news/joseph-smith-papers-documents-v-10-released?lang=eng

As expected, our friends at Book of Mormon Central, the front for Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum, Inc. (BMAF), a long-time promoter of M2C, offered their spin on Volume 10.

According to Book of Mormon Central, the most important material in Volume 10 are the anonymous Times and Seasons articles.

They spent half their announcement describing and summarizing these articles, including such commentary as this: "As these editorials demonstrate, Joseph Smith and other early Latter-day Saints were excited to see new discoveries seemingly vindicate the claims made in the Book of Mormon and eagerly shared this new evidence with the world."

Of course, none of these editorials said or implied anything about Cumorah, which everyone during Joseph's lifetime knew was in New York. The year before, Joseph had his brother Don Carlos publish Letter VII in the Times and Seasons. In 1844 Joseph's brother William republished Letter VII yet again in the New York City LDS newspaper titled The Prophet.

Nevertheless, our M2C friends continue to insist these anonymous 1842 editorials supersede everything the prophets have taught about the New York Cumorah.

Here's the link.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/blog/new-joseph-smith-papers-volume-gives-window-into-the-nauvoo-period
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At the bottom of the page, they offer Additional Resources including an awesome video titled "What did prophets think about Book of Mormon geography? Their old books may give clues."

Except the video omitted an important "clue" about Cumorah, which I discussed here:

http://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2019/02/cumorah-and-presidents-lee-and-kimball.html
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People have asked about the article "4 Fascinating Insights about Seers, Seer Stones, and Interpreters" which you can see in the screen capture above.

There's a simple answer for the seer stone issue. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery always said Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. They always said the Urim and Thummim, not a Urim and Thummim.

But as we've learned from our M2C friends, once you repudiate the teachings of the prophets on one topic, it's easy to repudiate their teachings on other topics. Once you reject the New York Cumorah, you might as well also reject the Urim and Thummim and anything else that doesn't fit your worldview.

That's how confirmation bias minimizes the effect of cognitive dissonance.

And, as we always say, that's fine. People can believe whatever they want.

We continue to hope that our friends at Book of Mormon Central will someday simply offer readers a variety of faithful perspectives instead of insisting that we're only allowed to believe M2C.

"this country" vs. "the Americas"

When Moroni first visited Joseph Smith at the Smith farm outside of Palmyra, NY, he "gave a general account of the promises made to the fathers, and also gave a history of the aborigenes of this country, and said they were literal descendants of Abraham."

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/68

You might think that looks fairly straightforward. Webster's 1828 dictionary defined "country" to mean the region in which one resides, the territory situated in the vicinity of a city, or the whole territory of a kingdom or state. Joseph Smith lived near Palmyra in western New York in the United States. You can choose among the Webster's definitions (which remain valid today) to decide which "aborigenes" Moroni was referring to.

Our friends who promote M2C nevertheless claim that "this country" refers to Mesoamerica because, according to them, the Nephites never left the "limited geography" of Mesoamerica. They landed there and the entire Book of Mormon took place there, culminating in the final battle at Cumorah in southern Mexico.

They've written articles full of clever rhetoric and sophistry to justify their position. But it's a patently ridiculous argument, so they've persuaded our Church historians to replace "this country" with the term "the Americas." 

For example, in Saints, Volume 1, we read this:

"Moroni spoke of gold plates buried in a nearby hill. On the plates was etched the record of an ancient people who once lived in the Americas."

Moroni never said that. No original documents use the term "the Americas." It is pure revisionist history, designed solely to accommodate the current intellectual fixation on Mesoamerica and M2C.

For a fun exercise, go to the Joseph Smith Papers and search for "the Americas." You'll get 17 results. Every one of them is in the commentary and notes. You'll read things such as "For early believers, the book was not only a religious history of ancient inhabitants of the Americas..." "The idea that God would establish the New Jerusalem, or the city of Zion somewhere in the Americas stemmed from the Book of Mormon." "The Book of Mormon also prophesied that the New Jerusalem should be built up upon this land, referring to the Americas." "Jaredites: a term used in the Book of Mormon to refer to descendants and followers of Jared who departed for a "land of promise" which JS later identified as the Americas."

The last one is especially fun because Joseph never used the term "the Americas." This is putting words in Joseph's mouth for a specific modern agenda--M2C. It is not history. 

You can also search "this country" on the Joseph Smith Papers website and see how Joseph and his contemporaries used the term. It always referred to a specific nation (the United States or England, depending on where the author was at the time) or a local region.

Here are some examples.

Lucy Mack Smith reported that soon after she received word that the translation was complete, three men came to ask her to show them the gold bible. She wrote, "No gentlemen said I we have <​got​> <​no​> gold bible but we have a translation of some gold plates which was sent to the world to bring the plainess of the Gospel to the children of men and to give a history of the people that used to inhabit this country."

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/111

On October 22, 1829, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to Oliver Cowdery. This is the earliest letter written by Joseph Smith that we have today. He wrote from Harmony, Pennsylvania. Oliver Cowdery was in Palmyra, NY, at the time, supervising the publication of the Book of Mormon. Among other things, Joseph wrote "there begins to be a great call for our books in this country."

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-oliver-cowdery-22-october-1829/1

In March 1831, Joseph wrote a letter from Kirtland, Ohio, to his brother Hyrum, who was in Harpursville, NY. He wrote "I think <​you​> had better Come into this Country immediately for the Lord has Commanded us that we Should Call the Elders of the this Chursh to gether unto this plase as soon as possable."

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-hyrum-smith-3-4-march-1831/2

In 1832, Joseph Smith wrote a letter from Hiram Township, Ohio, to W.W. Phelps, who was then in Independence, Missouri. Joseph wrote about "our toils in travling from this country to Zion amidst a crooked & preverse generation."

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-william-w-phelps-31-july-1832/2

On August 16, 1834, Joseph Smith wrote a letter from Kirtland to Lyman Wight and others who were in Liberty, Missouri. He wrote " let there be every signer obtained that can be in the State of Missouri and while they are on their Journey to this country that paradventure we may learn whithe [whether] we have friends or not in these United States."

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-lyman-wight-and-others-16-august-1834/2

In February 1835, when Oliver Cowdery delivered the apostolic charge to Parley P. Pratt, he said, "It is required, not merely to travel a few miles in this country, but in distant countries."

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minutes-and-blessings-21-february-1835/3

You can find more examples, but let's end with this important one.

In 1842, Joseph wrote an article titled "Church History," better known today as the Wentworth letter. In it, he reaffirmed the account of Moroni's visit that opened this blog post. He wrote, "I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country, and shown who they were, and from whence they came." A few paragraphs later, when describing the Nephites, he wrote, "The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country." 

In that same letter, he wrote about the "frontier country" and described how, when the Saints were in Missouri, "an organized banditti ranged through the country robbed us of our cattle, sheep horses..."

Despite the historical evidence, our M2C scholars, their followers, and Church historians claim that when Joseph Smith used the term "country" he really meant "the American continent," which they shorten to "the Americas." That's how they rationalize changing Church history to accommodate their modern ideas about geography.

In an amazing irony, the Saints books themselves take their title from a paragraph in the Wentworth letter that explicitly distinguishes between "continent" and "country." This is the paragraph that immediately precedes the Articles of Faith.

Our missionaries are going forth to different nations, and in Germany, Palestine, New Holland, the East Indies, and other places, the standard of truth has been erected: no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done.
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When you read all of this, it's easy to see why the M2C proponents and the Church historians who collaborate with them are changing Church history right before our eyes.

Joseph, Oliver, and all their contemporaries knew that the Book of Mormon was the history of the ancient people who lived in the country where Joseph received the plates. Moroni even told him the record was "written and deposited" not far from Joseph's home near Palmyra, NY.

Every time you read or hear the words "the Americas" in connection with Church history, think "this country." Whether you interpret it to mean the area right around Palmyra, or western New York, or even the United States as it existed in 1823 through 1842, at least you're on the same page with Joseph Smith.

Note: there are some examples of Joseph writing about "this continent," such as in Joseph's appeal to the "Green Mountain Boys" when he wrote "the Book of Mormon as the history of the aborigines of this continent," and in the Wentworth letter: "The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country. This book also tells us that our Savior made his appearance upon this continent after his ressurrection, that he planted the gospel here in all its fulness, and richness, and power, and blessing."

There is also Joseph Smith--History 1:34 (compiled by Joseph's scribes). "He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants."

Our M2C friends and historians claim these references to "this continent" mean "the Americas" and that "this country" therefore is either an error or should be interpreted to mean "the Americas." Of course, the other alternative is to use the connotation of "continent" that is consistent with "this country," such as the way Webster defined it as "a connected tract of land of great extent."

Webster's 1828 dictionary commented also that "In Spenser, continent is use [sic] for ground in general." The term can be used for "a mainland contrasted with islands."

Some definitions distinguish between North and South America as separate continents while others combined them into one continent. There is a long history of the etymology of the term and its applications that can be debated. In my view, Joseph's use of "continent" in these references does not contradict his use of "country" as a more specific and narrower territory. 
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Here's another fun exercise.

Since Moroni wrote some of the Book of Mormon (and presumably read what his father had written), maybe Moroni's own use of the term "country" should be considered when we seek to understand what he meant when he told Joseph Smith that the Book of Mormon was the history of the aborigines of "this country."

Search for "country" in the Book of Mormon itself. You'll find phrases such as "defend their country," "the freedom of his country," "defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion," "the cause of their country," "ye are also traitors to your country," "those parts of our country which he hath retained," "the safety of their country," "defend their north country," "the laws of their country," "even unto his own country," "the country which lay before us," "escaped into the country southward," "the face of this north country," and "the country was divided."